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Sectarian violence / Bangladesh

At least 20 killed when Islamists battle police

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoIsmail Ferdous | associated pressOnlookers and relatives of missing workers watch as crews clear rubble and recover bodies from the crushed garment factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh, where the death toll was at least 630.

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By Ruma PaulReuters • Tuesday May 7, 2013 7:08 AM

DHAKA, Bangladesh — At least 20 Bangladeshis were killed yesterday in clashes between police and
hard-line Islamists demanding religious reforms, as violence spread beyond the capital, Dhaka, to
other parts of the country.

The clashes began on Sunday after 200,000 Islamist supporters marched in Dhaka to press demands
that critics said would amount to “Talibanization” of a country that maintains secularism as state
policy, but they were met by lines of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

Yesterday, hundreds of protesters, many wearing white Muslim skullcaps, threw stones at police,
who dispersed them with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

Protesters set fire to vehicles, including two police cars, and stormed a police post on the
outskirts of the capital.

Two policemen and a member of a paramilitary force were among the 13 people killed in the
capital, police said.

Five more died in the southeastern city of Chittagong after police opened fire on protesters
attacking their station. Two were killed in Bagerhat in the south. On Sunday, four people were
killed in the clashes.

The violence has cast a shadow over economic prospects at a time when industrial accidents, such
as the April 24 collapse of a garment factory complex where more than 600 people died, are raising
questions about investing in and buying cheap products from the country.

The protests are led by a group called Hefajat-e-Islam, which set last Sunday as a deadline for
the government to introduce a new blasphemy law, reinstate pledges to God in the constitution, ban
women from mixing freely with men and require Islamic education.

The government of the overwhelmingly Muslim country has rejected the demands.